What The World Needs Now: Bacharach

Some Of Pop's Great Voices Try To Tame Songwriter's Idiosyncratic Hits On Tnt Special.

April 15, 1998|By JON PARELES The New York Times

NEW YORK — As pop continues to rediscover the music rockers once scorned, Burt Bacharach is a sure-fire candidate for rehabilitation. His backups might be corny, and his collaborators' lyrics have their ups and downs, but one thing is constant: Bacharach's tunes are strange.

Writing in a rock era that rewarded sing-along simplicity, he somehow had hits with melodies that defied symmetry, jumped all over the place and veered into unlikely harmonies. They should carry warning stickers that read: ``Professional singers only. Don't try these at home.''

Bacharach assembled singers who could handle his challenges for a tribute concert last week at the Hammerstein Ballroom that was taped to be shown tonight on TNT.

Dionne Warwick, who had a string of hits with Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs in the 1960s, was on hand, of course. Bacharach thanked her for being ``a great vehicle.''

But Bacharach's songs also drew assorted performers, from the Ben Folds Five to Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders to Sheryl Crow to Luther Vandross to Wynonna. The program included one of his newest songs, written with Elvis Costello, as well as his first four hits from the late 1950s, which already revealed a tunesmith avoiding convention.

Between songs, Bacharach revealed the source of his songs' peculiarity: his first love was be-bop. While he never picked up its briskly swinging rhythms, he used be-bop's capricious melodic contours within middle-of-the-road pop.

The program also suggested one reason so many rockers have been drawn to his songs; more often than not, they put a brave face on loneliness and despair. Bacharach's labyrinthine melodies, wandering from minor to major keys or suddenly speeding up, give shape to ambivalence.

Crow opened the concert with an archetypal sentiment; abandoned by a partner, she itemized the conveniences of being alone in One Less Bell to Answer and sang, ``I should be happy, but all I do is cry.''

The performers were backed by a small orchestra, and most of the arrangements, by Bacharach or George Duke, had the tranquilized tone of mid-1960s pop. With cheerful ``sha-la-las'' or nonchalant instrumental combinations like cornet and flute, the music left emotion up to the singers, who often chose a breathy delivery modeled on Warwick's hits.

Hynde filled Baby It's You with come-hither assurance. Wynonna's version of Anyone Who Had a Heart was lovesick but quietly furious. Costello sang the new Bacharach-Costello song This House Is Empty Now with poised, quietly escalating anguish, in an encouraging preview of a full album of Bacharach-Costello songs that they will begin recording in June. Bacharach revealed his own unassuming baritone in Alfie.

Vandross had more leeway with the music, shifting What the World Needs Now from a waltz to 4/4 time so that he could bring it some of Marvin Gaye's insinuating funk.

For comedy, Mike Myers sang What's New Pussycat flanked by two dancers in cat costumes. And the Ben Folds Five gave Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head a fuzz-toned rock crescendo. The bill also included the Barenaked Ladies, the four-woman vocal group All Saints and an instrumental featuring Duke and the saxophonist Dave Sanborn.

Warwick, precise but seemingly on autopilot, made her old hits sound like exactly what they're not: easygoing, artless pop tunes. Still, nobody was foolhardy enough to sing along.